Opening Day is baseball’s version of a national holiday, a day filled with hope, a time when optimism and joy converge in celebration of a journey that is just beginning.

Nearly 10 years after he was viciously attacked in the parking lot outside Dodger Stadium, Opening Day remains the worst day of Bryan Stow’s life. It was when his journey almost ended.

“For everybody else, they’re like, 10 years, that came quick,” Stow said. “For me, it’s been like 30 or 40 years because I have to deal with it ev-er-y day.”

March 31, 2011 was the day Stow, a Santa Clara County paramedic, took a vacation to be at Dodger Stadium when his beloved Giants opened their title defense against the Dodgers. Wearing a Buster Posey Giants jersey, Stow was returning to his car after the game when he was assaulted by two men, Marvin Norwood and Louie Sanchez.

Norwood pleaded guilty to felony assault and Sanchez to felony mayhem. Norwood was sentenced to four years in prison while Sanchez was sentenced to eight. The assailants understood they would eventually receive opportunities to regain control of their lives.

Stow didn’t get that chance.

“It was just day-by-day,” Stow’s sister, Erin Collins, said of waiting by her brother’s hospital bed. “From praying we would see movement behind his eyelids, praying that his eyes would open and the doctors could never tell us how far he would come. So every step has been a miracle.”

For much of the last decade, each step Stow has taken appears more miraculous than the last. In the year following the attack, Stow spent nine months in a medically induced coma. He had to relearn how to walk and talk.

Today, thousands of children are the beneficiaries of his comeback.

Five years ago, Stow’s speech-language pathologist, Brandy Dickinson, brought him to an elementary school so he could get acquainted with speaking in front of a group. Five years later, he has built a platform as a public speaker to spread an anti-bullying message at more than 300 schools around the state.

To those who saw Stow after the attack, the transformation is as shocking as it is inspiring.

“It’s Opening Day and we lost the game and then we got the news about what happened to Bryan and it changed everything with the mood,” former Giants manager Bruce Bochy said last week. “You just realized, we’re playing a game and this poor man gets hit from behind and just gets beat up so badly and it’s incredible the recovery he has made.”

Bochy, Giants CEO Larry Baer and former Giants reliever Jeremy Affeldt were among a contingent from the team who visited Stow in the hospital in the days after the attack. Affeldt remembers sitting around with teammates at a hotel and being overcome with anger when the news of what took place in the parking lot aired on television.

“He was an EMT, he probably saw things and had all of these stories he would tell his family,” Affeldt said, before putting himself in the minds of Stow’s parents. “But when it actually happens to your son and you knew it was going to alter your life, not just his but everybody’s, it was heartbreaking. They’re scared and you wanted to bring some type of light to the situation.”

Saving Stow’s life required around-the-clock care from a team of Los Angeles-area doctors, whom the family remains connected with today. Erin says the Stows didn’t allow the idea that Bryan may never be the same to cross their minds, because they were so focused on his fight for life.

“We didn’t want to be crushed,” Erin said. “Especially with not being able to get an answer from his doctors on what was going to happen, it was honestly day-by-day. What were we going to get today? Did he survive the night? Especially in the beginning, all we could really look at was him surviving.”

Giants players passed the hat and donated to help cover the cost of Stow’s medical bills while former third base coach Tim Flannery and his Lunatic Fringe band began playing annual benefit concerts close to Stow’s home in Santa Cruz.

Initial support from players and Giants fans helped uplift Stow. Enduring support from the children he’s spoken to has made an indelible impact on his new life.

After first talking to students about his career as a paramedic, Stow found a greater purpose in calling his assailants by name, showing their pictures to children and explaining how “adult bullies” changed his life. He encourages kids to help one another and seek out an adult for help if they’re being bullied.

“I had a great job before this, I was a paramedic,” Stow told the Bay Area News Group. “But now I think I have a bigger calling spreading the word about anti-bullying and telling kids that bullying is not good and it’s not OK.”

His life looks far different than he or anyone in his family ever imagined. Stow loves traveling down to Southern California with his mother, Ann, enjoys going over to friends’ houses to watch football on Sundays and most of all, taking his kids, Tyler, 22, and Tabitha, 18, to dinner and the movie theater.

“To be part of their lives is really big for me,” Stow said. “They’re both really good kids.”

Those activities may sound normal, but Stow still needs medical attention throughout the day. He uses a cane to get around his house and does physical therapy every other day. He has a charming sense of humor and radiates joy with every interaction, but he must live at home with Ann, and his father, Dave, so they can serve as his full-time caretakers.

“This is where I get emotional,” Stow’s sister Erin said. “Without my parents, my sister (Bonnie) and I would figure it out. But what they have done for him, not that they would admit it, but the toll it has taken on them is a lot. He’s gotten much better physically, but he still needs help.”

The whole family has pitched in, but it’s mostly Ann who drives Bryan to his speaking engagements and who stays overnight with him at motels when they’re far from home. She waits with Bryan after the presentations as kids approach for pictures and autographs. She sees the look on his face when he realizes the impact he has made.

“They tell me how I changed their life,” Stow said. “Kids want attention and if I’m the only person up there, I’ll give them the attention.”

Kids aren’t the only ones who have learned from Stow. By simply finding a platform, showing up and channeling all of the negativity and hatred he could hold in his heart into a positive cause, Stow has reached plenty of adults.

“What these guys did was meant for evil,” Affeldt said. “They beat him up, their anger, their rage, their need for some of this sick desire to be hurtful, harmful and bring pain and he can turn around and say the biggest way to tell them they are nobody in what they do is to say, ‘You tried to do this to me, but I’m going to take what you did and make an impact on many.’”

As the 10-year anniversary of his attack approaches, the coronavirus pandemic has cost Stow the opportunity to do what he loves most. It’s been nearly a calendar year since he last addressed students, which he says, “is not good for me.”

Stow has been forced to spend more time at home, where he and his mother Ann are considering adjusting his message so he can speak to children who have been cyber-bullied during online schooling. They’re eager for the chance to visit a school again, and know that touching even one more student’s life will be worth the wait.

“If they can get something out of what I’m saying, that makes this all worth it,” Stow said.

Stow’s attack may feel like a recent memory to some, particularly because the player whose jersey he wore to Dodger Stadium is still a crucial member of the club. Posey played alongside Brandon Belt and Brandon Crawford during the 2011 season after Stow was attacked, and all three still hold pivotal roles with the team.

For the Stow family, the decade has been more difficult to measure.

“Sometimes it feels like 100 years,” Erin said. “It’s really bizarre. Other times we’ll talk about it as a family at a family dinner and just remembering back at the hospital and it feels like yesterday.”

Stow said he hasn’t thought much about how he’ll feel on Opening Day this year because he’s more focused on the day he can return to classrooms and auditoriums to share the message that’s become the guiding force in his life.

His assailants stole so much Stow will never be able to get back, but they couldn’t take the joy he shares with everyone he meets.

“Bryan has this aura about him,” Ann said. “He always seems to be happy. I’ve never seen Bryan down or mad about anything. That helps in staying positive.”

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